People around the world have been yearning for meaningful ways to help the people of Haiti — and up to now, most have felt powerless to do much more than open their wallets.
Of course, many have done just that, donating millions of dollars to nongovernmental organizations so they can deliver desperately needed basics like food, water and medical supplies to Haitians suffering from the mass destruction wrought by the earthquake.
But now, thousands of volunteers are gathering in cities around the world to help bolster relief groups and government first responders in a new way: by building free open-source technology tools that can help aid relief and recovery on the ground in Haiti.
“Before all you could do was send money to the Red Cross,” says Noel Dickover, co-founder of Crisis Commons, which is organizing the events, known as CrisisCamp Haiti. “Now we’ve figured out a way to bring the average citizen, literally around the world, to come and help in a crisis.”
Just 48 hours after news of the quake, Crisis Commons organized five events – held two weekends ago in Washington, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Colorado and Brooklyn – to begin work on several ambitious technology projects. Among them, Haiti OpenStreetMap, now the most complete digital map of Haiti’s roads, hospitals, triage centers and refugee camps currently available. Another critical project is the We Need, We Have Exchange, a project in partnership with the U.S. State Department to create a Craigslist-style site where nonprofits working in Haiti can post needs and requests and find donors.
Several hundred people turned out, about a third of whom were software developers and the rest Internet-savvy citizens who came with laptops and power strips ready to help, says Mr. Dickover, who took last week off from his day job as a technology consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense, among other agencies, to work 18-hour days on CrisisCamp. “This is more important than anything I’ve ever done in my life.”
The work continued last weekend, when 12 CrisisCamp Haiti events were held in Boston, Boulder/Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, New Orleans, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Washington, Toronto, Bogotá, Columbia, and Portland, Ore. This weekend, events will be held in Chicago and New York City, London, Montreal, Washington and Toronto. New events are being added daily.
“We can take as many people as are interested,” Mr. Dickover says, though he said there are particular needs for volunteers who speak Creole to help with translations, instructional designers to build educational materials to aid volunteers, mobile-application developers and Python programmers who can help with the mapping project.
Volunteers are encouraged to bring their own ideas and whatever special knowledge or skills they have to the table. Indeed, new projects are being added at a mad clip, such as the Haiti Hospital Capacity Finder to provide real-time data on the capacities of local hospitals, including those outside of Port au Prince with extra beds.
Technology companies have also been stepping up to help; Microsoft is providing its cloud-computing platform, RNK Communications is providing telecommunications support and FortiusOne, mapping software maker, deeply involved in mapping projects. Yahoo hosted the Silicon Valley gathering last Saturday.